feisty
Infrastructure investing sits at the quieter end of Australian finance: long-duration assets, patient capital, and decisions that play out over decades. It's also a sector where women are steadily moving into senior roles, closing transactions, and setting strategy at funds with billions under management. The names below aren't exhaustive, but they represent the spread: fund managers, asset directors, and advisers who work across energy, transport, social infrastructure, and digital assets.
Why infrastructure is worth watching
Australian superannuation funds collectively hold more than AU$3.5 trillion in assets, and infrastructure has become one of their most significant allocations. Funds like AustralianSuper, IFM Investors, and Macquarie Asset Management run global infrastructure portfolios that include airports, ports, pipelines, and renewable energy platforms. The people managing those portfolios wield real market power.
The sector attracts long-tenure careers. Unlike equities, where fund managers can rotate quickly, infrastructure roles tend to compound over time: the same person who underwrote a toll road acquisition in 2015 is often still overseeing it a decade later. That stability has allowed women who entered the sector in the 2010s to reach genuinely senior positions today.
Dealmakers and fund leaders to know
Alison Kitchen chairs Macquarie Group and has long shaped how Macquarie Asset Management, one of the world's largest infrastructure investors, approaches governance and capital allocation. Kitchen's influence extends well beyond a single fund or transaction.
Fiona Trafford-Walker built a long career at Frontier Advisors advising superannuation funds on infrastructure and alternatives allocations. She served as managing director and shaped how major Australian super funds construct their unlisted asset exposure. Her work influenced billions in infrastructure commitments across multiple funds.
Kirsty Jenkinson moved to CalPERS (the California Public Employees' Retirement System) to lead its sustainable investment strategy, but her earlier career at Victorian Funds Management Corporation placed her at the centre of Australian infrastructure allocation decisions. She's a notable example of Australian women in finance moving to senior roles in global institutions.
Sarah Shaw has worked in infrastructure debt and equity across Australian and international markets, holding positions at Colonial First State Global Asset Management and later 4D Infrastructure, a specialist global listed infrastructure fund manager based in Sydney. As a portfolio manager at 4D Infrastructure, Shaw covers emerging markets infrastructure at a fund level.
Angela Karl leads infrastructure transactions for IFM Investors, the industry-super-owned fund manager that holds assets including the Indiana Toll Road, Melbourne Airport, and a string of European and North American infrastructure platforms. IFM manages more than AU$200 billion across infrastructure, debt, equities, and private equity, and Karl is among the senior dealmakers in its infrastructure team.
Tanya Cox served as managing director and head of Australian infrastructure at Hastings Funds Management before the firm was wound down by Westpac. Cox's career spanned major Australian assets including the Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal and airport-related infrastructure during a formative period for Australian unlisted infrastructure as an asset class.
Advisers and transaction lawyers shaping the sector
Infrastructure transactions don't close without specialists on the advisory side. Several women lead the legal and financial advisory practices that underwrite major deals.
Rebecca Maslen-Stannage is the chair and senior partner of Herbert Smith Freehills, which advises on a high proportion of Australia's largest infrastructure transactions. Freehills has acted on asset sales, public-private partnerships, and greenfield project financings across energy, transport, and social infrastructure.
Karen Evans-Cullen is a partner at Allens with deep experience in infrastructure and project finance, having advised on transactions including the privatisation of state-owned energy assets and major renewable energy project financings. Her work covers both the origination and the ongoing structuring of long-duration assets.
On the financial advisory side, Lisa George has held senior roles in Macquarie's infrastructure and real assets advisory practice, working on mandates that include privatisations, asset recycling transactions, and secondary market sales of infrastructure portfolios.
Emerging leaders in renewable energy infrastructure
The energy transition has created an entirely new sub-sector within infrastructure: renewable energy platforms, battery storage, and the grid-scale assets needed to connect them. Women are leading several of the funds and companies investing in this space.
Felicity Tests and Rowan Evans are among the emerging generation of investment professionals at specialist renewable infrastructure managers, working across deal origination, due diligence, and asset management on solar, wind, and storage projects. The renewable energy pipeline in Australia is large enough to sustain specialist careers in a way that wasn't true 10 years ago.
Superannuation-backed vehicles including the Clean Energy Finance Corporation's co-investment activities and the National Reconstruction Fund have expanded the pool of roles available to women who want to work at the intersection of infrastructure and the energy transition.
How this list connects to the broader picture
Infrastructure is one part of a wider shift in how Australian women are participating in finance. The patterns visible here, including longer tenure, concentration in institutional rather than boutique settings, and a growing presence on the advisory side, echo what's happening in Australian women in private equity, where dealmakers are closing transactions and sitting on portfolio company boards at a scale that wasn't common a decade ago.
The governance angle matters too. As women chairing ASX-listed boards demonstrate, leadership at the top of an institution changes what gets prioritised and how decisions get made. The same dynamic is playing out inside infrastructure funds, where women in senior roles are shaping investment mandates, ESG frameworks, and the composition of portfolio company boards.
Infrastructure investing rewards patience and depth. The women building careers in this sector are doing exactly that.